When it comes to hiring sales professionals, executives want the right ingredients for a perfect rainmaker recipe. Regardless of experience or industry, there are four key attributes that every top salesperson possesses.

1. Resilient

Rejection is par for the course in any sales career. Leading performers get up repeatedly when they’re knocked to the mat and make more calls. Top salespeople don’t take a prospect’s “no” personally – rather as a challenge to close the next deal. Resiliency also helps them to roll with the punches as changes occur in their company.

2. Continuous self-improvement

During a client visit with a minor league sports team, their executives and I saw the players work on their skills from dawn until dusk. Those players were trying to take their career to the next level. Yet, when we looked at the sales team, they lacked that same commitment to continuous self-improvement – which was one of the organization’s primary problems with sales.

Just like elite athletes, top salespeople are always upping their game. Four of their most valuable investments are in: sales skills, industry research, prospect buying habits, and competitor analysis. Winning sales professionals pursue these areas relentlessly.

3. Client goal-oriented

If making money is a salesperson’s primary objective, their prospects can break a leg running away. Most prospects easily detect salespeople who put their paycheck before their clients’ needs.

Top salespeople know the only way to reach their goals is to help their clients achieve their goals. The equation does not work the other way around.

4. Inquisitive

Many salespeople are passionate about their company and its products…so much so that they tell anyone and everyone about them. Yack, yack, yack! People don’t buy because they’ve been lectured. They buy because, through conversation, opportunities for improvement are uncovered. Conversation occurs when salespeople master the art of asking questions.

Coming back to being “client goal-oriented,” salespeople can’t help prospects if they don’t know what their client wants. The old expression of being interested versus interesting is a foundational success principle in sales.

While there are many attributes executives need to evaluate in a candidate, these four ingredients should be non-negotiable.

Lee Salz is a sales management strategist and best-selling author of “Hire Right, Higher Profits." He specializes in helping companies build world-class salesforces through effective hiring, onboarding, managing and compensating salespeople. He's developed the
free webinar "7 Sales Differentiation Secrets Every Salesperson Needs to Know," and he can be reached at lsalz@salesarchitects.com and 763-416-4321.